Bawdy and exotic, Arabian Nights, features the wily, seductive Scheherazade, who saves her own life by telling tales of magical transformations, genies and wishes, flying carpets and fantastical journeys, terror and passion to entertain and appease the brutal King Shahryar. First introduced into the West in 1704, the stories of The Thousand and One Nights are most familiar to American readers in sanitized children's versions. This modern edition, based on Richard F. Burton's unexpurgated translation, restores the sensuality and lushness of the original Arabic. Here are the famous adventures of Sinbad, "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, " and "Aladdin and the Magic Lamp. " Intricate and imaginative, these stories-within-stories told over a thousand and one nights continue to captivate readers as they have for centuries.